


Let The Fires Burn

by taichara



Category: Rockman X | Mega Man X
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 21:51:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9035195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taichara/pseuds/taichara
Summary: Zero, the spoils of the hunt, and the future.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TachyonStar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TachyonStar/gifts).



Zero stared into the furnace, arms crossed, bristling with aggravation he didn't bother to try and conceal. Right then, that moment, he could have wished his 'profession' and his rank and all the rest of it right into the bowels of hell itself and not shed a tear.

It wasn't that he _hated_ his work, oh no. He loved his work. There were few things more satisfying than cleaving some psychotic's head clean off their shoulders or tearing their core out of their chassis, ichor spraying, unless it was helping some poor victimized virus-riddled bastard to shuffle off the mortal coil before they lost everything ...

The furnace flared -- a gaping white-hot maw the size of half a warehouse -- as a few score more brightly-coloured bodies tumbled into it, pushed over the lip by automated blades. Zero's lip curled.

It wasn't the bloody mess, it was the cleanup after the fact.

_Can't run the risk of spreading the cancer, after all._

No rest for the wicked. There was too much of a chance of a latent strain of the virus left lurking in a Maverick's corpse; no resuscitation, no reconstruction for them -- and no repurposing the corpse. Instead teleport tags piled them up right here, in the Slags, for 'recycling'.

Which was, Zero mused, a right fine way to describe complete and total meltdown.

He rather felt that way himself.

_One of these days, probably going to be me in there. Wonder if he'll stage an intervention?_

Oh, probably; Zero snorted at his own burst of pessimism, tossed the thought aside. X couldn't stand the Slags on principle, necessary as they were (which was how Zero kept finding himself stuck with the duty of sending off the so-dear departed); he'd never send Zero to the fires.

Not even if, not even when, he should.

It was oddly comforting, in a way.

_So I'll just have to return the favour, and make sure you do get in here._


End file.
